Optical sensing, detecting, and tracking devices may comprise a lens system to project light rays from a segment of an environment onto a planar or other surface. One such device is shown schematically in FIG. 1. The surface may comprise an array of photo sensors that create electronic signals from the projected light. Examples of photo sensors include charge coupled devices (CCD) having a planar rectangular array of distinct light receptors that produce a respective pixel of the projected light, such as are used in digital cameras. Typically each such receptor in a CCD generates a voltage corresponding to the light amplitude level integrated over the exposure time. Also, the values of the pixels in a CCD are typically taken at specific time instants, rather than having a continuous time, or real-time, output. That is, the received light is digitally sampled in time by the CCD rather than producing a real-time analog output. Such devices typically include electronics that may amplify the sensor signals from the optical sensors and applying signal processing to the sensor signals to obtain desired output results, such as position, motion and acceleration of an object. Other types of photo sensors may be chosen, depending on the application.
Depending on the application, other detecting and tracking devices may be based on non-visible electromagnetic radiation. Still other detecting and tracking devices may be based on non-electromagnetic phenomena.
However, many current devices using multiple sensors typically are configured so that the sensors only react or respond to inputs local to themselves. Inputs impinging on other nearby sensors are considered to be problems to be avoided or designed around. This limits the overall resolution of, for example, location detection.